Dare to Do More Strength – Week Three
The focus of week three of the Dare to Do Challenge is STRENGTH. While cardio is very important to your daily routine, strength training has benefits of its own: it protects your bones and muscle mass, keeps you functionally strong, improves your energy, and helps with your mood.
Most strength regimes work, but with so many new gimmicks, programs, videos, and machines out there, you might be wondering what exercises are the most efficient. Spending hours in the gym is not necessary when your goals are to increase definition and decrease body fat.
Here is the secret to strength training: use multiple muscles working together to get the best bang for your buck! An exercise based on compound movements like squatting, lunging, pushing, pulling, or rotating actually burns more calories than an exercise focused on an individual joint or muscle group. Performing multi-joint exercises can stimulate intramuscular coordination within a specific muscle, which is required for improving definition and also create the intermuscular coordination responsible for generating a greater demand for oxygen, which then increases the total amount of calories burned.
Try these exercises as part of your routine. All of them engage your core and multiple muscle groups within the areas.
Lower Body:
Dumbbell goblet squat
Barbell deadlift
Split-leg squat (also known as the Bulgarian split-leg squat)
Single-leg Romanian deadlift (RDL)
Upper Body:
Push-ups
One-arm press
Pull-ups
Rotational Exercise: Turkish get-up
UW coaches are experts in strength training. Want to work out with them? Don’t miss the opportunity and register now.
The American Council on Exercise suggests this routine as an optimal strength-training workout. Most exercises can be done with body weight, a barbell, dumbbell, or kettlebell If you are new to strength training, pick one of each group and use your body weight or very light weight.
Turkish Get-up
- Reps: 5-8
- Sets: 2-4
- Rest: 90-120 seconds
Turkish get-up
Deadlift
- Reps: 1-6
- Sets: 2-4
- Rest: 2-3 minutes
Deadlift
Deadlift
Counterweight Squat
- Reps: 6-12
- Sets: 2-4
- Rest: 90-120 seconds
Counterweight squat
Single-leg Romanian Dead Lift or Split Leg Squat
- Reps: 12-15
- Sets: 2-4
- Rest: 90-120 seconds
Single-leg Romanian Dead Lift
Single leg deadlift position 2
Split leg squat position 1
Split leg squat position 2
Cradle and Press
- Reps: 6-10
- Sets: 2-4
- Rest: 90-120 seconds
Cradle and press
Pull-ups (modified if necessary)
- Reps: to fatigue
- Sets: 2-4
- Rest: 90-120 seconds
Be sure to watch Marti Minutes if you need instructions on how to do pull-ups correctly and safely.
Push-ups
- Reps: to fatigue
- Sets: 2-4
- Rest: 90-120 seconds
Want more info? Check out Coach Marti’s kettlebell handout- Heavy Metal: A Light Introduction to Kettlebelling for an instruction guide and more photos!
What is your favorite strength training exercise?